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Songs of tne Glad Years 

By 

Blanche Finkle Gile 



Autltor of 



Echoes of the Great 




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THE TUTTLE COMPANY 
RUTLAND, VERMONT 

1922 






Copyright 1922 

The Tuttle Company 

Butland, Vermont 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 



Acknowledgment for * permission to reprint these 
verses is made to the following piiblications : The New 
York TimeSf The New York Sun, McCall's, Jwdge, 
Today's Housewife, Springfield Bepuhlican, Christian 
Cruardian, Christian Eegister, American Messenger, 
Social Progress, New England Homestead, Granite 
Monthly, Beacon Press, Fun Book, Snappy Stories, 
FordowncTf The Vermonter, 



C1A692422 



TO 

(gwrg^ Sana ^mttlf 

Librarian of tke Fletclier Free Library, 

W^kose symt)atlietic at)t)reciation is a source of 

insf)iration to all Vermont writers, 

tkis book IS inscrited. 



CONTENTS 

Little Things 7 

Disillusionment 8 

Coal-Fire 9 

Yards 10 

The Mariner 11 

Treasures 12 

Bitter-Sweet 13 

A Brown Study 14 

Much Fine Gold 15 

October Skies 16 

His Lambs 17 

The Fairy Laundry 18 

Pixie Cradles 19 

Memory 20 

Ghosts of Regrets ... 20 

Revenge 21 

A Mid-Summer Parable 22 

On the Death of Caruso 23 

The Profiteer 24 

The Riddle 25 

Champlain Sunset 26 

Stags-at-B'ay 27 

A Busy Day in a Future Court 28 

Triolet 29 

Premature 30 

Housewife's Mania 31 

Come into the Garden 32 

The Flivver Psalm 33 

Good-Bye, Summer Girl 34 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



LITTLOE THINGS 

How I love the little things 
That every daily cycle brings. 

The morning song of the coffee pot; 
The sizzle of bacon smoking hot. 

The half hour spent with the daily press 
Before the children awake and dress. 

The washing of faces and restless hands; 
Tying ribbons and buttoning bands. 

The gleam of silver, the shimmer of delf ; 
A cup of tea from the pantry shelf. 

The busy music of dish and spoon; 
The hurry and flurry of odorous noon. 

A neighbor's greeting across the fence; 
A dollar saved on the week's expense. 

A merry call and a slamming door, 

And '^Mother, I'm home, it's half past four." 

A snowy table and berries red; 
The evening lamp lit over head 

Some boisterous kisses at eight o'clock; 
A quiet hour with book or sock. 

The ''Good night, dear," of the one loved best; 
The long sweet hours of well earned rest. 

And when Lord Death has loosed my bond, 
And I slip into the great beyond. 
My hope is not for crown and wings, 
But just for homely, little things. 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



DISILLUSIONMENT 

All the kids in our street are in an awful funk, 
They've got the story all around that Santa 

Glaus is bunk, 
But Mother said that he was real as solemn as 

could be, 
And somehow I don't like to feel that Mother's 

fooling me. 

So last night, when my dad came home, I took 

him to one side. 
And asked hinx just as man to man who was it 

that had lied, 
And dad he talked so serious and tried with all 

his might 
To make me understand how both the boys and 

Ma were right. 

He told me what a Symbol is, how Santa and his 

toys 
Stand for the love that parents give to little 

girls and boys. 
But by and by, alone in bed, I'm 'fraid I shed 

a tear. 
For somehow Christmas ain't the same as 

Christmas was last year. 



8 



SONGS OF THE GLAD TEARS 



OOAL-FIRE 

Our love is not the love that's told in story, 
That leaps, flame-born, from ont the tingling 
dark. 
And often, like such things as flaunting glory, 
Soon dwindles, fails, nor leaves a kindling 
spark. 

Our love is just a quiet, steady burning, 
A glow that ever deepens, ever lives. 

All showy flares and pyrotechnics spurning. 
But oh, the comfort, oh, the warmth it gives ! 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



YAEiDS 

I have a friend across the street 

Whose yard's a mass of blossoms sweet; 

Heliotrope and mignonette, 

Scarlet runners, Bouncing Bet, 

Sweet Alyssum, four o 'clocks, 

Columbine and hollyhocks: 

Her blossoms are her joy and pride. 

My neighbor on the other side. 

But in my yard are blossoms, too. 

The strangest flowers that ever grew; 

A hoe and rake of puppet size, 

A pile of sand, some fat mud pies, 

A spade, a spoon, a wee red pail, 

A rabbit with a stumpy tail. 

And brownish spots where children's boots 

Have worn the grass down to its roots. 

The people passing to and fro 
Can't see I've flowers at all, you know, 
But I'm so queer I think they're fine, 
I would not take her yard for mine. 



10 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



THE MAEINER 

My little Boy Blue is sailing his ship 

Over a bathtub sea, 
While, hovering near lest the small sailor slip, 

I join in my laddie's glee. 

But into the world he will pilot his ship 
Away from its port in my heart, 

God make me wise that I build for his trip 
A true and enduring chart. 



11 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



TKEASURES 

The teddy-bear lies on the table, 

Two dollies sprawl flat on the floor, 
And the hobby-horse claims for his stable 

The jog by the dining room door; 
My chair holds a calico bunny, 

A jnmping-jack swings from above, 
And each is a treasure to Sonny, 

Miss Muffett, and wee Lady Love. 

Innumerable times have I told them 

That scattering toys makes me vexed, 
Half-dismayed and half -laughing I scold them, 

''What will you be leaving 'round next?'' 
But I pick up the battered clown, Funny, 

As I'd nestle a wing-weary dove. 
For he is a treasure to Sonny, 

Miss Muffett, and wee Lady Love. 

With nerves that are tired and a- jangle 

From childish confusion and noise, 
I hasten to straighten the tangle. 

But gently I handle their toys. 
Lest I, by my heedlessly grieving 

A worshipful small devotee, 
Should break some fine thread that is weaving 

My treasures to home and to me. 



12 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



BITTER-SWEET 

IVe struggled with him many years 
To make him wash his hands, 

To clean his teeth and nails and ears 
Have been hard-worked commands. 

And though IVe labored long and much, 

It's just of late IVe seen 
That mothers lack the magic touch 

To make a boy wash clean. 

These days he lives before the glass, 

His neckties lead the fad, 
His polished teeth would safely pass 

For someone's dental ad. 

His hair is sleek, his nail tips shine. 
He takes my heart by storm, 

All told, that careless boy of mine 
Is quite the mold of form. 

Somehow the fingers of dull pain 
Around my heart-strings curl; 

He'll never be all mine again — 
My boy has got a girl! 



13 



SONGS OF THE GLAD TEARS 



A BROWN STUDY 

I walk with small John when the woodlot is 
bare "^ 

And shivery with November cold, 
We poke the brown leaves and we find here and 
there 
Choice nuggets of real Brownies' gold. 

In his little brown sweater and brown knitted 
cap 
He looks like a stray woodland elf, 
And I think as I follow the spry little chap 
That he's kin to the Brownies himself. 

Among the brown bushes with devious twists 

He dances from basket to tree, 
But back to my basket with nuts in his fists 

He darts like a homeward bound bee. 

Delightfully dear is the brown of the year. 
Gray-shadowed by late autumn skies. 

But Mother Earth's gown can flaunt no shade 
of brown 
That compares with my Lover-Boy's eyes. 



14 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



MUCH FINE GOLD 

My Lady has slippers of gold for her feet, 
And dishes of gold when she wishes to eat, 
My Lady has circlets of gold for her wrist 
But there's much fine gold that My Lady has 
missed. 

For I've yellow paint on my clean kitchen floor. 
The sun makes gold bars through the glass in 

the door, 
There's half ripe tomatoes a-gleam on the sill, 
And a bobbing wee head that I never see still. 

My golden-curled baby I nuzzle and kiss 
And wish for My Lady a treasure like this. 



15 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



OCTOBER SKIES 

That big white cloud I think is a sheep, 

A beautiful, fleecy ewe, 
With three soft lambkins fast asleep 

On a quilt of forget-me-not blue. 
Oh, how I wish that I were Bo-Peep 

Afloat with them up there, too! 



16 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



HIS LAMBS 

Do you think the holy light 
Scared the lambs that Christmas night, 
In the field there fast asleep 
Nestled in a fleecy heap? 

Do you think they felt a doubt 
When God's glory shone about, 
Even though less trustful masters 
Were ^* sore afraid" of great disasters? 

Don't you think each wooly breast 
Sensed that they might safely rest; 
That naught of harm could come to them 
With the Babe at Bethlehem? 



17 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



THE FAIRY LAUNDRY 

In the meadows there bide at the blue ocean's 

side 
Some fairies who 're having such fun, 
They launder their clothes in the bowl of a rose 
And hang them to dry in the sun. 

Their soapsuds they dip from a foaming wave's 

tip, 
They blue in the chicory's cup, 
They starch each wee thing with a butterfly's 

wing 
Then on the tall grass hang them up. 

Some folks say I'm wrong that the clothes of 

my song 
Are only the field spider's tents. 
But I know without doubt what I'm talking 

about. 
Some folks show such ignorance! 



18 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



PIXIE CKADLES 

Although no breeze stirs overhead, 
There's movement in the tulip bed; 
Swinging gently to and fro, 
Nodding sleepily and slow. 
The velvet blo^oms sway and rock. 
While evening bells chime eight o'clock 
In tulip cradles, soft and deep, 
Pixie babes are rocked to sleep. 

Although no sound floats on the air. 

There's haunting music, thin and rare, 

Where the piebald tulips grow; 

For, crooning mistily and low 

Like moonlight striking silver streams 

Or murmurings of long lost dreams, 

Pixie mothers watches keep 

And sing the Pixie babes to sleep. 



19 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



MEMORY 

I pluck its roses when I will, 
Dark night or hazy morn, 
For Father Time, the Gardener, 
Has blunted every thorn. 



GHOSTS OF KEGRETS 

You told me of a little road one day 

And said that son^etime we would down it stray. 

We never did — and then you went away. 

Years came and went. You sent no word, but 

then 
Wise Father Time is kinder than most men. 
And even spring can bring me no regret. 
No troubled memories haunt me now. And yet 
When May enfolds me in its fragrant weather 
I wish we had gone down that road together. 



20 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



REVENGE 

My mind is proud, resentful, 

And sternly through the day. 

It drives the haunting thoughts of you 

Determinedly away. 

At night they swoop upon me 
And mad possession take. 
For while my mind is fast asleep 
My heart is wide awake. 



21 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



A MID-SUMMER PARABLE 

A stout stone wall stands high between 
The dirty road and the garden green; 
Inside, the flowers dance, gay and glad; 
Out in the dust, the world runs mad. 

Playing at ''Ladies" the blossoms fair 
Cursty and nod in the censered air, 
While the stout stone wall stands high to screen 
The wicked world from the garden green. 

Velvet phlox with tutored grace 
Sway in this sheltered scented place, 
And heliotrope and mignonette 
Thread through a puppet minuet. 

Graciously, carefully, lest, perchance. 
Too abandoned become their dance. 
Silken, imperial hollyhocks 
Tread a measure with four o 'clocks. 

And all the while the wall stands guard 
Lest wanton winds should blow too hard. 

# # # 

Out by the highroad, with eyes askance, 
A daisy is doing the shimmy dance. 



22 



SONGS OF THE GLAD TEARS 



ON THE DEATH OF CARUSO 

I dreamed last night I stood upon a mountain 
That reached so far it pierced the higher 
plane, 

I saw beside me there a crystal fountain, 
Above it glistened beads of silver rain. 

Seraphic music set the air a-tingle, 
Methought a precious boon to me was given, 

That I was let with angel-folk to mingle, 
In this the radiant vestibule of Heaven. 

Then suddenly above the angel singing 

There came a note so piercing, blinding, 
sweet, 

And yet it thrilled like deep fog bells a-ringing 

From rocky shore where sea and river meet. 

The angel music hushed. The crystal fountain 
Bestilled itself to catch the moment's thrall, 

And poised above the holy shining mountain 
The drops of silver rain refused to fall. 

The singing soul came nearer, ever nearer, 

In shame the strings of golden harps hung 
free, 

I saw the singer's face as in a mirror. 

And lo, our own Caruso smiled at me ! 



23 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



THE PROFITEER 

(Twenty years hence.) 
A little girl climbed on her granddaddy's knee, 
And pleaded, ''Oh, tell a true story to me!" 
She wheedled and teased as a little girl can 
To hear him live over the war days again. 

So he told her of gallant and glorious fight. 
Of the Nation's response to the call of the right. 
Of brave mothers and sisters and sweethearts 

and wives, 
Of the flower of young manhood who poured out 

their lives, 
That the world might be safe when the conflict 

was done. 
And men keep the freedom their fathers had 

won. 

Then she wistfully queried, ''And what did you 

do? 
I think that the man who was bravest was you." 
The grandfather gazed 'round the beautiful 

room,, 
And its luxury seemed like a symbol of doom. 
He regretted the past, for he felt he was old, 
And the fire of desire was expiring and cold. 

He thought of his end in a deep narrow hole, 
Too small for his body, too large for his soul. 
And he made no reply, as he stifled a sigh, 
But he lowered his head at the look in her eye, 
For he knew in his heart that the arrow had hit, 
He had done the poor people instead of his bit ! 



24 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



THE RIDDLE 

The whole world is striking from cops to the 

clock, 
And the gallant ship Progress has struck on a 

rock, 
Nobody wants work, everybody wants -pay. 
And '* Something for naught" is the text of 

the day, 
But the first law of nature is working hard yet, 
''If nothing you 11 give, it's nothing you'll 

get!" 

*'If things will not travel our own little way^ 
We'll get mad and starve, we'll go home and 

won't play, 
If we can't be on top and pasture in clover. 
We'll get us a gun and turn the world over." 
So instead of each giving his best little bit. 
The whole of creation is bound to be ''it." 

By your leave I will offer this ancient solution, 
The basic commandment of man's evolution, 
It's hackneyed and trite and long since forgot, 
However, methinks, it would go to the spot. 
The Golden Rule, "Live and let others live — 
Not how much you can get but how much yoti 
can give." 

If all these mad factions would join in a truce 
And give it a try out — but, oh, what's the use? 



25 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



CHAMPLAIN SUNSET 

At eventide, when toil is done, 

Mine eyes delight to gaze 
Across the lake where sinking sun 

Has set the west ablaze 
With trailing robes of glory spun 

Of gold and purple haze. 

Where the sun and mountains tryst 

A molten flame leaps high. 
Cerise and gold-flecked amethyst 

Too vivid for the eye, 
Then fading, sheds a rosy mist 

That veils the lake and sky. 

# « « 

Any picture painter who would try to paint it 

right. 
They'd brand a nature faker who was *^ seeing 

things at night." 
But I feel sure that Paradise which we all hope 

to gain 
Has nothing on a clear sunset across old Lake 

Champlain ! 



26 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



STAGS-AT-BAY 

There was a time the barber shop was sacred 
to the sex that wears moustaches on its lips and 
whiskers on its necks, but nowadays when man- 
kind wants a shampoo and a shave, a haircut 
and a scalp massage, a singe and marcel wave, 
he hies him to a barber shop and finds to his 
chagrin a half a gross assorted kids and women 
folks within. The hour or two he used to 
spend in pleasant manly chat is lurid with the 
weeps and wails of some unruly brat. And so 
when half distracted pop puts on his hat to 
roam, he finds that at the barber shop are all 
the joys of home. The humid bar has gone the 
pace of this sad sinful earth, now where 's a 
man to find a place of peace, goodwill and 
mirth? Oh, masculine supremacy has proved a 
farce and hoax, for not a spot is left where he 
can dodge his women folks ! 



27 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 

A BUSY DAY IN A FUTURE COURT 

A woman fair sits, Portia like, upon the Judge's 

seat. 
For each offender she prescribes a sentence pat 

and mete, 
At last one comes whose case would seem to get 

the Judge's goat, 
She halts, she powder-puffs her nose, she coughs 

to clear her throat, 
**To find a fitting punishment is difficult," 

says she, 
''Slow death is much too quickly past for such 

a wretch as he. 
Transport him to a desert isle ten thousand 

miles from here, 
There shall he never speak again into a human 

ear. ' ' 

What direful deed has this man done to merit 

such a fate? 
Is he the Chieftain of the Hun whose sentence 

we relate? 
Is he the man who set the fire that claimed the 

orphans' lives? 
Is he a Saint of Latter Days with supernum- 

erous wives? 
Is he the man who stole the pence from out the 

blind man's cup? 
Is he a swinish profiteer who forced the prices 

up? 
What did this sad degenerate, this creature bad 

and bold? 
Let's know the worst! Ah, he's the man who 

kissed and went and told ! 

28 



J> 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



TKIOLET 

They have misnamed you Pegasus, 
They should have called you '*Maud. 
You balk, you low-browed blunder-buss ! 
They have misnamed you, Pegasus. 
You're such a measly stubborn cuss, 
I've found you out, you fraud! 
They have misnamed you ^'Pegasus," 
They should have called you **Maud. 



)? 



29 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



PEEMATURE 

When I was ten with wabbling pen, some 

twenty years ago, 
I made a rhyme in school one time and called it 

'^Teacher's Beau,'' 
And in and out it passed about for all the class 

to see. 
It proved a hit, they laughed at it, and then 

they laughed at me, 
For down the aisle without a smile the wrathful 

lady came, 
And like a trap with sudden snap she seized my 

shrinking frame, 
She did not reel the moral spiel that moderns 

term ^'corrective," 
To turn the trick she used a stick where it was 

most effective. 

These favored days the critics praise such erst- 
while social blunders. 

And greet as art the efforts smart of wide-eyed 
infant wonders. 

With grim regret I work and sweat and try to 
play the game, 

For I have missed that simple twist that leads 
cross-lots to fame, 

I spent my toil on barren soil, it bore me no 
renown, 

But were it now upon my brow they'd place a 
laurel crown. 



30 



SONGS OF THE GLAD TEARS 



HOUSEWIFE'S MANIA 

The neighbors all around about have worked 
from morn till night, their domiciles inside and 
out they've cleaned with m;ain and might. 
They've hung their cellars in the sun, their 
attic shingles shine, they've greased their floors 
with three-in-one and lard and turpentine. Up- 
on the line their carpets droop, they beat and 
never tire, and I sit out upon my stoop and 
swat my trusty lyre. And while their curtains 
white and fair they hang from burnished hooks, 
I ornament an easy chair and read some twenty 
books. But many sob-producing woes from 
their hard toil have come, they limp around on 
crippled toes their spines are out of plumb. I 
would not hurt my useful feet nor break my 
well known back, I think the neighbors are 
too neat and they think I am slack. 



31 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



COME INTO THE GAIIDEN 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
The morning breeze is blowing, 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
The early spuds need hoeing ; 

And where should be the useful pea 

The mullen stalks are growing. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
And prune the lucious sasses; 

Anoint the bean with paris green 
And pull the greedy grasses; 

Besmear the smug potato bug 
With sulphur and molasses. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 

Reduce your figure weeding; 
Come into the garden, Maud, 

The whole wide world needs feeding ; 
Change falderals for overalls, 

Forget your bestest beau, 
And come into the garden, Maud, 

To juggle with the hoe. 



32 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 

THE FLIVVER PSALM 

My Ford is a bird ; I shall not walk. 

It beareth me unto green pastures : It carrieth 

me beside the still waters. 
It restoreth my roll: It heedeth the claims of 

reputation and runneth for its name 's sake. 
Yea, though I poke through the valley with the 

shadow of a breath, I will speed up the 

hill; for my cart climbs on high; its rod 

and its shift they comfort me. 
It provideth an able get-away from the presence 

of mine enemies ; I anointest its head with 

oil ; its tank runneth over. 
Surely to goodness it will last me all the days 

of my life ; and I will ride with my spouse 

in my Ford forever. 



33 



SONGS OF THE GLAD YEARS 



GOOD-BYE, SUMMER GIRL 

Lift up your eyes, sweet Summer Girl, 

Blue windows of your heart. 
Let me surmise, sweet Summer Girl, 

If you and I must part; 
Ah, mirrored in your soul ajar 

My countenance I ken, 
But quite as clear the phizes are 

Of twenty other men. 

And I have loved you, Summer Girl, 

For six weeks and a day, 
But now I'll kiss you. Summer Girl, 

And then — 1 11 ride away ; 
And may I meet a girl as sweet 

As you but not so wise, 
And my lone image may I greet 

When I look in her eyes. 



34 



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